Archive for September 22nd, 2009

The first two games of this match were both won by Black, after hard and interesting fights. Would White achieve a better result today? Almost. Former World Championship challenger Nigel Short had his younger Ukrainian opponent on the ropes, and only with a strong and imaginative defence could Zahar Efimenko save his bacon. Game three analysis by GM Klaus Bischoff.

Exactly 25 years after their first encounter – the World Championship match in Moscow – the perennial opponents Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov are playing a twelve-game rapid and blitz match in the Spanish city of Valencia. The rounds start on Tuesday at 19:00h CEST (21:00h Moscow, 1 p.m. NY), with two days of rapid games and one for blitz. Watch it on Playchess.

Nobody watches long interviews on the Internet any more – Google and YouTube have satiated us pretty much. But sometimes you have to make an exception. Here are Garry Kasparov and Magnus Carlsen talking about their cooperation to make the latter the number one in chess. The discussion on Norway’s NRK Nett-TV talk show is charming and insightful. Video and full transcript.

At the Grand
Slam Masters in Bilbao Alexander Grischuk took second place behind Levon
Aronian. Whereas he had good results with white and won two of those games, he
had to submit to two defeats as black. GM Karsten Müller has annotated for ChessBase
Magazine Online Grischuk’s pretty endgame success against Alexei Shirov
from round two. In it, it is once again the bishop which triumphs over the
knight.
Analysis of the ending
Grischuk-Shirov
Endgame
DVDs